1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for distributing a program to a plurality of terminals, with a capability of eliminating an overlap of download schedules at a low cost.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, along with the spread of Internet environment, a method to download firmware via the Internet is widely used. If a plurality of devices start downloading the firmware at the same time, the Internet band is compressed and a load on a server of a downloading destination is increased. To overcome such a drawback, a system is constructed and operated to prevent overlapping of download schedules when the multiple devices download the firmware.
However, with an increase in the firmware size, the time required for a single device to download the firmware has increased, thus resulting in overlapping of the download schedules of the devices. Due to this, the Internet band is compressed, the load on the server of the downloading destination is increased, the server is not able to speedily download the firmware, and a firmware downloading process is timed out, thus resulting in a failure of the firmware downloading process.
In a technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. 2001-216150, a specialized server to download the firmware is included in a system, the firmware is downloaded using the specialized server, and the downloaded firmware is distributed to another server included in the system, thus preventing overlapping of the download schedules.
However, in the aforementioned conventional technology, apart from a device that carries out updation of the firmware, the specialized server that exclusively carries out downloading of the firmware also needs to be included in the system, thus increasing the cost.
In other words, a method is called for that prevents overlapping of the download schedules at a low cost.